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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

A Poem by Nels Hanson

Mother of Water LandsI

Under the lake it is always summerthere, the
river and green meadowsfull of game and the aspen treesnever turn in
fall, it never snows,the river never freezes. The ancestorsgrow young
again, no one gets sickor fights. They live almost happilyin the village
of teepees painted withorange suns and yellow moonswhere everything is
perfect, exceptfor one sadness. A child sleeps andwon’t wake up. He
groans and criesout and they can’t do anything torouse him from his bad
dream.They watch over him, they singto him and fan his face with
fernsand eagle feathers, but nothing worksto stop his nightmare. He
dreamsthe things we all do here, the lakehis green clear eye that never
sleeps.

II

One day when things are betterin our world the dreaming
childwill open his eyes— The wind blows,the sky turns black, full of
clouds.Birds call and circle above the greenwater. Then a basket rises
on the lakeand floats to shore with a babydressed in clean deerskin.
He’ll bringa rattle of buffalo horn and weara necklace of blue stones.
An Indianwoman without a husband or childwill find the basket. She’ll
raisethe boy who won’t learn to speak,but when you look into his
eyesyou remember and know who he is,the one forced to watch us and
cry.

III

All the time many things are risingfrom the lake, songs
and spellscarved on antler and bone, medicines,special roots that don’t
grow here,fresh berries wrapped in green grassstalks sweeter than grass
our horseseat. Elk pemmican and smokedsalmon in baskets woven so the
watercan’t soak through. The child and hismother find them on the shore
and takethem home until their house is fullof good medicine the Old
Peoplesend. All the deer come and the bears.Owls roost on the roof, by
sparrows,mourning dove and the line of crows.

IV

One day the
Sleeping Child’s motheris sick, so he goes alone to the lake.He finds no
medicine or food, justa book with a bark cover and pagesmade of reed. In
the book is the storyof all things and all things to come.He takes it
home to his mother. Sheopens the book and reads it and getswell. The
next day a young womanbrings a sick child to the house andreads the book
and the child is allright. People from all over hear aboutthe book and
come to the SleepingChild’s house to read it and behealed. The book
isn’t long, it hasonly one word. Everyone learns it,the Word spreads
across the mountains,all across the world so on everyone’slips and in
everyone’s heart, so eventhe wind knows it, and the animalsat night
when they call to one another,is the one Word and only true
sound.

V

The Word gets louder and louder,like a whirling wind. One
day, wheneveryone knows it, wherever you goyou hear it, the silent
Sleeping Childspeaks. He says the Word that’s quietlike water, but
louder than thunder.The Earth shakes, the green watersin the lake go
away, up the mountainto Moose Lake. The green eye closesand the door to
Mother of WaterLands opens. The two worldsare connected, people live in
the stonecity where they used to live, wherethe lake used to be. The Old
Peoplecome to visit the Sleeping Child and hereturns the horn rattle and
necklaceof blue rocks, then tells many thingsabout waking in the dream
world.

Nels Hanson has worked as a farmer, teacher, and contract writer/editor. He
graduated from UC Santa Cruz and the U of Montana and his fiction received the
San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award. His stories have appeared in
Antioch Review, Texas Review, Black Warrior Review, Southeast Review, Montreal
Review, and other journals. "Now the River's in You," which appeared in Ruminate
Magazine, was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize, and "No One Can Find Us,"
which was published in Ray's Road Review, has been nominated for the 2012
Pushcart Prizes. Poems have appeared in Poetry Porch, Atticus Review, Red Booth
Review, Meadowlands Review, Emerge Literary Review, and other magazines.

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About the Editor

A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, fourteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses. Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.